The Prince Who Fed the Tiger

Jataka of Supreme Sacrifice

Prince Sattva gives his body to a starving tigress, a Dunhuang mural of great compassion.

Prince Sattva of the Jataka wanders into the forest and finds a tigress starving beside her newborn cubs. Moved by compassion, he gives his own body to the tigress; his family finds only bones, over which they build a stupa. The mural of the prince feeding the tiger is among the most famous images of sacrifice in Buddhist art — compassion carried to the point of self-erasure.